Several countries have lockout/tagout standards for the purposes of preventing injuries and deaths caused by the accidental or untimely start-up of equipment during maintenance or servicing. Portions of these standards deal with proper shutdown or other steps taken to render the machinery inoperative prior to maintenance, energy source management, and user training. In addition, the marking or tagging of machine while it is lined up for servicing or maintenance, or while it is in the midst of such servicing or maintenance forms a part of some of these standards. In any event, even where standards do not exist there are benefits to providing lockout tags or indicia for the tagging or marking of machinery undergoing servicing or maintenance.
One industry in which lockout tags are used is in the servicing of aircraft, particularly small aircraft. These tags are intended to be readily and suitably attached to the aircraft, be highly visible, and provide the appropriate indicia to alert a user to the level of caution required in approaching or entering the aircraft. The level of caution may be presented by the colour of the tag.
Several prior art documents show elements of such lockout tags, for example U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,401,570; 7,624,525; 7,254,841; and 6,494,065; U.S. Design Pat. No. D408,865; and WO 2013/126753, all of which are expressly incorporated by reference. Other tags such as luggage tags are demonstrated in U.S. Pat. No. 736,299; U.S. Pat. No. 2,911,743; and U.S. Pat. No. 3,429,065, all of which are expressly incorporated by reference. These references show various lockout tags or tag systems that have been proposed. However, there is some deficiency in each of them as will be apparent to one skilled in the art following a reading of the disclosure below and its advantages.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for an improved lockout tag.